Don't miss the Todt Museum, it is absolutely brilliant - probably the best museum I've been to in France, it has so many artifacts you can spend days there!
can you imagine how fkn loud that gun was in there the echo chamber dam !!! great freekin video thanks for translating the writing unreal bro you did a great job cant wait for the rest !!!!
Great Video Folks, the Graffiti reading SOS means "Siegen oder sterben" wich translates to "Victory or dying". Such Wall paintings were also done in Civil Shelters, even if they were not that direct in their Meanings. Greetings from Germany and keep the good work up
That casemate is absolutely awesome. They always remind me of art deco cinemas. I hate graffiti with a passion and to ruin history so is mindless vandalism.
I watch your videos every Friday I am so amazed on all of your great journeys through these great historical sites that you explore I love it thanks for keeping the history alive IKS Exploration!!! P.S I Hate Graffiti too!!!!
I went in that one early '70's. No grafitti, I hope to find the photo's I took of everything one day. There was also a list on the wall of firing dates and targets.
Great video chaps. I called in to the Todt museum last year at the end of a road trip on way to the channel tunnel and it was excellent although I didn't realise at the time that the other casemates were abandoned out in the woods. That last bunker you went in to escape from the rain seems to have some original German graffiti around the doorway that you might have missed.
if they were anything like western guns emplacements the gun sat separate on its own foundations within the bunker and was hydraulically mounted t(like an engine mount) to absorb the shock. but yeah the noise would of be insanity.
They sure did like their concrete. Hope they had a silencer for that gun, if you were near that when it was fired the shock wave would cause internal injuries, the shape of that structure would act like an amplifier.
I've seen similar (but smaller) US gun batteries on the California Coast. Looking at the configuration of them I wonder if someone thought of repurposing one as an outdoor ampitheater?
Iain l have got some photos from 1984 of these that my dad took when we went on holiday a French person from the campsite took us... They had no graffiti then this was probably because the French were doing national service.. I will try to dig them out! we could not remember where the bunker was how strange to see you there lol
We visited one of those same large cross channel gun emplacements in about 1965. I remember a large pile of rusting hand grenades on the central plinth where the gun was situated. At the end of the war two German soldiers were tasked with clearing the landmines from the area and they piled them up in one of those large block houses. Unfortunately one of the mines detonated and the whole lot went up. The head of one of the Germans was found on Cap Gris Nez lighthouse, we were told by the local residents. That is why one of the large block houses there is blown up. It`s about 55 years now since I was last there. At the time German ordnance was still littered about.
A picture of what it looked like. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todt_Battery#/media/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_146-1986-104-10A,_Atlantikwall,_Batterie_%22Todt%22.jpg
Great piece of engineering they all are. Great sense of homour you all have. So historic all the places. So Battery Todt would have been use to fire on the British, Canadians and Americans at the start of D-Day June 6th 1944? Didnt realise those places were that big. Poor old chris landing on the ground.
The first painting on the left when entering the bunker (the Nazi flag with the 2 crosses on each side) is not original. It was added after the war for the shooting of a film.
might be the context but ..."gegen Engeland" actually means "against england" . might be i'm mistaking in translating but that's atleast what i learned in school :D
It think it can mean both. In modern German "gegen etwas" almost always is "against something", but in literature and older German it can also mean a movement towards something.
I wonder if you got a french local to talk with the farmers near there if they would share some hidden details with you. Im sure they would did stuff up more often then not working the fields there. Very sad that ingrate idiots would damage history like that. hope that guy in the comments finds the photos of the original art.
"Gegen Engeland" - from the popular WW1 German Patriotic song "Wir fahren gegen Engeland" ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-xALz_YxKTPI.html Also the title of a German Navy newspaper, but often circulated amongst those stationed in Brittany and Normandy. Great Vid, many thanks..!
Bloody shame about the original German graffiti. I don't condone the actions of the Nazis but it's still a part of military/war history that's been primarily lost to idiots. Nice vid gents!
I think Gegen England means Victory over England. Towards England would be Nach England. "The future right now seems grey and shrouded." "Opfer" is also victim. (The writing was too faint to catch the whole phrase. ) The problem with translating German is, words it do not directly translate across. German words often have very nuanced meanings and depends on the whole context of the phrase or sentence, not just a single word, so it easy to mistranslate. It is best have someone fluent in the language to translate otherwise you miss the meaning of the phrase or slogan. As you can see by misinterpreting one word, you can change the entire meaning of the propaganda graffiti ; )
Even to this day there is a lot of anger and hatred regarding what the nazis did, I dont condone it dun I can understand why some people would want to destroy nazi symbols, monuments and writings. There is also the point of preserving history and learning from it, most of these text and symbols have already been recorded and a lot of personal memorabilia has been collected in museums to be kept safe for generations to view and study
But it's not, it's damaging and destroying history. Spraying random shit over a site which has stood the test of time is incredibly disrespectful. If they didn't do that graffiti on historical sites then people would be fine with it. I wouldn't defend this graffiti especially when a lot of it is literally the word "fuck". Done by children who should know better.